There is a need for devices which have an extraordinary capacity to shred bulky objects in mass into recyclable materials. Current federal and state regulations pertaining to the disposal waste products (including waste wood products) have placed a premium upon converting such wastes into recyclable materials.
The need to shred bulky wooden objects into a more compact and recyclable form is typified by a need to dispose of spent or surplus wooden pallets. Such pallets are extensively used to stack goods and materials for shipment and warehousing. The wooden pallets are typically constructed of an upper and lower wooden planking nailed to wooden cross beams spaced so as to provide access for transport by forklift. The pallets are often used for stacking goods upon a series of stacked pallets. The pallets must necessarily be very durable in construction since the pallets must often support heavy objects and withstand stacking weight. The heavy duty construction makes it difficult to recycle the pallets.
Although such pallets are constructed for purposes of withstanding considerable abuse, the pallets are frequently irreparable damaged. It is also sometimes more economical to dispose of the pallets rather than to return or reuse the pallets. This can arise when the end user has essentially no need for the surplus pallets or the returning cost makes it unprofitable to reuse the pallets.
Mounting restrictions and regulations upon land fills and burning have created significant disposal problems, especially within metropolitan and industrial centers. The nails used to construct the pallets can cause considerable damage to conventional processing equipment. Conventional wood chippers fail to possess sufficient durability and efficacy to process such wooden pallets in mass. Consequently, the current wood chippers are typically ineffective and require extensive maintenance when continuously used to process, in mass, wooden pallets. The existing devices lack adequate capacity to effectively process the large volume of pallets which often accumulate at the final destination of a large volume pallet consumer. The ineffectiveness of such conventional wood chippers is also reflected by inefficient consumption of energy needed to simply process a relatively small volume of pallets.
There accordingly exists a need for a device capable of effectively disintegrating bulky and rigid structures such as wood pallets into particles of a recyclable size. Such a device must be able to withstand the impacting of wood pallets fed into the device at a high rate while also effectively discharging the processed material at a high discharge rate.